RCMP Chief Officer Dan Malo [left] updates the media, February 25, 2013, about three men being arrested for the murder of Red Scorpion's gang member Jonathan Bacon during a press conference in Delta.Ward Perrin
/ PNG

A police photo of one of the guns seized in Vancouver's Kensington Park in 2010 from several gangsters who police saw leave Gurmit Dhak's memorial service to gather at the park.Handout
/ RCMP

Jarrod Bacon (L) and Jonathan Bacon (R) leaving the Surrey Provincial Court house April 7, 2009 in a Ford F150 Crew Cap. Jarrod Bacon appears in Surrey Provincial Court for weapons charges. Jarrod Bacon's appearance is in the same courtroom as brother Jamie Bacon, who is charged with one count of first degree murder and conspiracy in the Surrey Six massacre. (Photo credit Sam Leung / The ProvinceSam Leung
/ PNG Files

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Three gangsters linked to the late Sukh Dhak have been charged with killing Red Scorpion Jon Bacon and wounding four of his associates in a brazen daylight shooting outside a Kelowna luxury hotel in August 2011.

The shooting shocked the city of Kelowna and led to an intensive 18-month investigation resulting in the weekend arrests of Jason Thomas McBride, 37, Jujhar Singh Khun-Khun, 25, and Michael Kerry Jones, 25, said Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit Chief Supt. Dan Malo.

“It was clear to us from that day on that this reckless public act would become one of the most critical public safety projects for law enforcement in the province of B.C.,” Malo said.

“This was a targeted criminal attack by those at the highest level of organized crime.”

McBride — a longtime associate of Dhak and his elder brother Gurmit, was picked up in Toronto where he has been living.

His lawyer Matthew Nathanson told The Vancouver Sun that “the allegations against my client are serious.”

“However, it is important to remember that they are allegations at this point and nothing more. My client is presumed to be innocent and this matter will be heard and decided in court, based on evidence rather than being tried in the media,” he said.

Khun-Khun, who has twice survived attempts on his life since the Bacon hit, was arrested in Surrey Sunday. Jones, who is from Gibsons, was taken into custody in Vancouver.

Malo said six search warrants were executed across the country in the massive murder probe, dubbed E-Nitrogen.

“The successful completion of this investigation was a perfect storm of cooperation, commitment and support by many law enforcement agencies and members of the public,” Malo said. “The arrests and charges of these individuals is an important accomplishment that will go far to enhance public safety in the province of British Columbia.”

All three accused appeared in Surrey Provincial Court Monday. McBride and Jones were remanded until March 21 and are scheduled to appear next in Kelowna. Khun-Khun’s case was put over to March 8 in Surrey. He is still recovering from the latest shooting and not able to travel.

Malo said that Bacon, his Hells Angel pal Larry Amero and Independent Soldiers buddy James Riach were meeting in Kelowna on Aug. 14, 2011 after forming a new criminal alliance dubbed the Wolf Pack.

They were with Leah Hadden-Watts, the niece of the Haney Hells Angel president, and her friend Lyndsey Black, when four people opened fire on their white Porsche Cayenne in front of the Kelowna Grand Hotel in the middle of the afternoon.

Hadden-Watts was left a paraplegic. Black, who escaped injury in a 2009 car shooting, wasn’t as lucky in the Kelowna attack and was hit several times. Amero was left with permanent damage to his hand. Riach escaped severe injury.

Malo said those directly involved in the shooting were McBride, Khun-Khun, Jones and a fourth man who is now dead. He wouldn’t provide the name, but The Sun has learned the fourth man was Manjinder Hairan, killed just last month in a Surrey shooting.

Amero is now in jail in Montreal where he is facing cocaine importing charges. Riach has maintained a low profile since the shooting.

Malo repeated his comments Monday that two years of tit-for-tat shootings stem back to the targeted hit on Gurmit Dhak outside Metrotown mall.

“The flashpoint of this gang violence began with the murder of Gurmit Dhak in Burnaby in October of 2010. But the Bacon shooting, as it was commonly called, became a starting point for a cascade of violence we saw repeated throughout B.C. during the last 18 months,” he said.

He wouldn’t comment on whether Bacon was a suspect in the 2010 Dhak murder, saying only: “Jonathan Bacon was part of the global conflict.”

Malo was asked why there haven’t been charges laid in slayings of Dhak associates, including Sukh Dhak himself and his bodyguard Thomas Mantel — shot to death in Burnaby last November — as well as Sandip Duhre, who was killed in downtown Vancouver in January 2012. He said it would be inappropriate to comment because the cases are being handled by other agencies.

However he said generally that police often know a lot about suspects in gang murders, even when they can’t get enough evidence to lay charges.

“Everybody is very astute, very aware of what’s going on in our gang conflicts,” he said of police. “There is not a homicide that takes place that we don’t know the individuals involved … The difficulty is to bring it from there to a point before the criminal justice system.”

Both Sukh Dhak and Mantel were also suspected of being part of the Kelowna conspiracy when they were killed.

McBride has a long history with police. His criminal record dates back to 1998 in Victoria where he was convicted of break-and-enter. He was later convicted of robbery, for which he got a 10-year firearms prohibition. In 2005, he was caught with a 40-calibre, semi-automatic Glock handgun in the front passenger seat of his Lincoln Navigator.

After Gurmit Dhak was killed, McBride was one of several gangsters who police saw leave Dhak’s memorial service to gather at Vancouver’s Kensington Park.

Two of those who were in the park, Christopher Iser and Mike Shirazi, were later convicted for possession of firearms they had with them that day. The Crown argued at trial that they were all in the park to plot a revenge murder for the Dhak hit.

“McBride was of particular interest to police because of his known connection and close association with Dhak,” the trial judge noted. “Mike Shirazi drove Mr. Iser to meet Jason McBride, a man with known gang affiliations whose associate (Dhak) had recently been killed by gun violence. Shirazi arrived in a vehicle loaded with weapons, ammunition, and a GPS tracking unit capable of being attached to other vehicles. With balaclavas, gloves, binoculars, a night vision device, and a map book, the Jeep contained all the items needed to covertly track and if desired, shoot an adversary.”

Like McBride, Khun-Khun was also well-known to police and close to the Dhak gang. He was critically injured in a September 2011 shooting in Surrey as he picked up Sukh Dhak from a residence.

Just last month, Khun-Khun was shot again in the same attack that saw gang-mate Hairan executed.

Khun-Khun, nicknamed Giani, was also arrested in Abbotsford last September in connection with a shooting outside the home of Bacon associate Brian (Shrek) Dhaliwal, but was never charged.

Khun-Khun was also arrested in Nanaimo in August 2011 with two associates after RCMP pulled over a 2008 Acura and found 27.5 grams of crack cocaine, 7.5 grams of marijuana, 108 ecstasy pills, $1,700 in Canadian cash, scales and a radio jamming system.

In addition, he was charged in Edmonton in 2009 in connection with an armed robbery of a jewelry store there. He was also convicted of kidnapping in Surrey Provincial Court in November 2007 after holding a stranger at gunpoint for several hours so he and an accomplice could steal his commercial truck. That same year, Khun-Khun was in the news when his 19-year-old fiancée died after falling from the truck he was driving in Surrey.

Jones has one conviction for driving while prohibited, but no other prior charges.

RCMP Asst. Commissioner Wayne Rideout said the Kelowna investigation “was an extremely complex and challenging project that has set an important standard for how these organized crime investigations work.”

“It represents the very best of an integrated and coordinated law enforcement approach to organized-crime investigations supported by dedicated organized-crime funding,” he said.

But he also said that despite the arrests, there will inevitably be more gang violence.

“We are doing everything we can to reduce that risk and to identify and disrupt and arrest those involved, but it’s not over,” Rideout said.

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